Best of the worst

“I am not such a bad person but don’t know what went wrong that particular moment…” Has that feeling ever hurt you? It happens with many of us many times. Leave aside what kind of a person we are; it goes without saying that others decide our goodness or badness!  What triggers at that particular moment decides our personality trait. Period.
The other day, while reading a counsellor column in a newspaper, I stumbled upon a sentence of a ‘devastated’ girlfriend saying her boyfriend who abused her all the time and drove her to a frustrated state of mind. She admitted that she said a thing or two about him in a fit of rage. What hurt her the most was the feeling that ‘she was never such a bad person’. However, the counsellor pointed it out rightly that the abusive relationship brought the worst out of her.
Though it’s up to us to react to situations and people irrespective of circumstances, the nature of a person we are dealing with has some bearing on it and vice versa. Inter-personal relationship is a terrain where ‘handle with care’ is the mantra. Every person is bound to have good and bad qualities. Notwithstanding our best of the efforts to present ourselves properly, a few situations or people may touch a raw nerve in us. At the same time, we can also get on to someone’s nerves.
 One of my friends, who recently got married, narrated an interesting experience. Her in-laws told my friend’s parents that she was a nice person. Overwhelmed by appreciation, she told me, “There is no question of me being nice as those people are nice.” She had a point. How can we be harsh to nice people? The story of an autistic kid presented in Amir Khan’s blockbuster Tare Zameen Par is a beautiful depiction of how love begets love. Similarly, anger, hatred, jealousy may nurture negative emotions.  
Each of us might have confronted contradicting situations. Sometimes, we are in no mood to argue but the opposite person is hell bent on arguments. On the contrary, we may be on the verge of confrontation but the gentle person we are talking to doesn’t give us a single chance to get angry! 
A cousin of mine used to come home with complaints that others teased him all the time. Hence he didn’t want to play with other kids. Over a period of time, we found out that his friends had identified his weakness of throwing tantrum every now and then. Irritating him was easy and fun too!
It takes a right person to identify right qualities of a person and making the most of them. Look at shrewd college principals who entrust the responsibility of college security on aggressive students who leave no stones unturned to ensure that things are in place. Two opposites make a perfect partnership, in domestic and professional relationships. Not contradictory but complementary personalities strike the balance. 
All said and done, it doesn’t matter whether we are good or bad a person. It depends on how much we allow others a free access to take the best or worst out of us. It’s essential not to lower our guard allowing others to touch our weaknesses, till we convert them into strengths. At the same time, let the best in us always protect us not to take the worst out of others. After all, the best and worst in us is a just a slip between the cup and the lip…

-KanChan


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